Archive for September, 2008

When I was a youth, my best friend, who also happened to be my neighbor, and I were inseperable. We were practically family, to the point where we could just waltz in and out of each other’s houses. I was an invited guest at family picnics, had been to all of her siblings’ homes, and had spent time at her house quite by myself the summer I took care of her dog.

Why the delightful skip down memory lane, Brain?, you may be asking yourself. Because, reader-type person, in my inescapable habit of watching my neighbors and shaking my head in shame, the other day I happened to notice a black station wagon, piloted by a newly-minted Teen Driver, sitting at the curb (directly across from my front window, don’t look at me like that). For five minutes. For ten minutes.

Little Timmy sat in his mom’s borrowed car for thirteen minutes (keep in mind, he was already there when I happened to peek out of Jason the Window Guy’s brand-spanking-new windows, so it’s more like 13+ minutes) before the high school aged McAcrosstheStreet came out and hopped in. Little Timmy straightened and slumped, dangled an arm out of the window to pretend to be cool, flipped his cell phone open and shut to pretend to be busy. But not once did he get out of the car and go to the McAcrosstheStreets’ front door to ring the bell. I should be grateful he didn’t honk at the house, I suppose, but you’ve gotta wonder why he couldn’t ring the doorbell. That’s what they’re for, right?

You know what they say. (You know, because they only say the one thing.) ‘Art imitates life.’ Wait, no, that doesn’t apply here. Hold on, I’ll think of it. Tortoise and the hare… nah… Um, a stitch in time… that’s not it, either… A watched pot never… nope. It’s on the tip of my tongue, here… Ah, yes. ‘If you make fun of your hillbilly neighbors often enough, you too will become a hillbilly.’

In my defense, the enormous couch on my front porch is just there for a few days, a transitional thing because it can’t go out to the curb for pickup until Wednesday. And because by actually physically moving it out of the living room, I am officially One Step Closer to actually getting rid of the damn thing. It’s temporary hillbillyism.

Of course, that was before Jason the Window Guy came to redo the windows. Now there’s a bunch of leftover wood from the frames and a smidgen of pink insulation (honestly, I don’t know why that’s there) on the porch. BUT, the Next Doors took a look at that and decided to up their ghetto quotient by removing the screen from their front door, so they can just climb in and out without opening it.

This is the sound of my coworker checking her email. You see, she has approximately an inch (maybe an inch and a half) high window in which to read her email. And given that most of her emails are from eBay (I know this because I have to help her print them once a month), they use an excessively large font, so she can read approximately one line (of three words) at a time. So she scrolls down. Manually. clickaclickaclickaclicka.

There are several potential solutions to this. She could: A) use the neat little double-arrow cursor to drag her (three inches plus tall) inbox window up so she has more space to read actual content; B) maximize the entire window (they got this button thingy in the corner that does just that, I hear); C) use that neat little ‘scroll’ feature on the side of the window; D) use those cute little arrow keys designed for this sort of thing; E) move her finger a centimeter to the right and use the mouse wheel. She does F) none of the above. She probably doesn’t realize she can do G) any of the above. And my best guess is she wouldn’t even care should I snap and bring this up.

(Although, what does one say in this situation? ‘Your refusal to apply logical thought to basic technology is producing a sound that makes me want to punch a baby.’ Would that help? Or would she just think I’m crazy?)

I don’t know, I think it’s the sheer refusal to learn or change that makes me crazy, moreso than the sound itself.

The body of this particular email informed me, Research has shown that 85% of women love a bigger, juicer and longer man meat. Honestly, if my boyfriend came with a bonus juicer, I would never let him go. Fresh fruit juice! Think of all the smoothie potential.

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Another suggested, When his wife is angry with you seen this chemist‎. If you ignore the grammar, this is pretty intriguing. Like the start to a novel. Why is his wife angry with me? Why isn’t she angry with him? Why isn’t he angry with me? Why isn’t my wife angry with me? Why aren’t I angry with anyone? And why do I need to see a chemist?

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If I was ever to write a book about Paris Hilton (an unlikely scenario), this would be the story I’d tell.

Yes it gets big, yes it gets strong, yes you can do it.‎ (If I wasn’t 99% positive they were discussing my manhood/sexual ability, this would actually be a pretty decent motivational speech. Actually, it still is.)

John McCain Takes the Olympic Gold in ‘Gymnastics’‎ (It’s the derisive, disbelieving use of the quotes around gymnastics that amuses me. Like the sender doesn’t quite believe that small girls jumping and twirling about is really a sport. Like cheerleading. Or figure skating.)